Cambridge English Proficiency Reading and Use of

English: Part 5
Description
This activity checks students’ knowledge of the Part 5 task format and focus and suggests
useful procedures for tackling it. Students then carry out the task, giving reasons for their
choice of answers.

Time required: 40 minutes

Materials  Copies of relevant page of the Teacher’s Handbook, or access to
required: the Candidate Support website
 Sample task
 (optional) a copy/copies of newspapers
 Student’s worksheet (one copy per student)

Aims:  to prepare for Reading and Use of English Part 5

 to raise awareness of what is being tested in Part 5

Procedure
1. Check that students are familiar with basic facts about Part 5 by asking the following
questions:
a) What types of text are there?
b) What types of question are there?
c) How many questions are there?
d) How do you show your answers?
e) How many marks are there?
f) What is tested in this part?
g) Can you write on the question paper?
See Key for answers. Note: if your students are new to Proficiency, give them the
relevant page from the Handbook, or from the Candidate Support website,
http://www.candidates.cambridgeesol.org/cs/, to refer to while answering these
questions.
2. Show students the title only (not the text) Lucy gets a new job on a newspaper. Show
them also part of the rubric: You are going to read an extract from a novel. Ask:
• What can they predict about the content of the text?
(What can we conclude from the fact that it is fiction? There will be narrative,
characters, dialogue.

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Cambridge English Proficiency Reading and Use of
English: Part 5
What is Lucy’s job likely to be? some kind of journalist
What vocabulary do we expect to see? Field of journalism and writing; her
feelings; perhaps difficulties she has at first)
3. Give out the Sample task. Ask students to skim read the text quickly to find out
whether their predictions about the text content are correct. Do not give students the
questions at all at this point. Point out that this is a good technique to use in the
exam, as it gives you a sense of the gist of the text before you tackle the detailed
questions. If students are not sure how to skim, suggest that they read the first
paragraph, the last paragraph and the just the first sentence of the paragraphs in
between. This is quick and is enough to understand the gist.
4. In pairs, students identify words in the text to do with newspapers (see Key). Explain
these words as necessary. If possible, show real examples of newspapers to illustrate
the vocabulary.
5. Give out the Student’s worksheet. Students work in pairs to put the stages of the
text in the right order (see Key).
6. Revise/introduce strategies for this type of task. Ask:
How would you go about doing the task? Would you read the questions for
each task first or the text first?
Point out that there is no absolute answer here but students have to find the strategy
that works best for them. Select relevant points from the Key.
7. Students work in pairs to answer questions 31–36.
Check through the answers, making sure that students justify correct answers with
reference to the text (see Key).
8. Summarise the strategy for tackling this task:
• skim read the text
• read the questions
• locate the part of text where the answer can be found (questions and answers are
in the same order) and read it carefully
• read the four options carefully
• select which answer they think is correct
• check the correct answer against the text
• justify why the wrong answers are wrong
• read the question and correct option together and do a final check with the text.

Additional information

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Cambridge English Proficiency Reading and Use of
English: Part 5
 This part tests candidates’ detailed understanding of a long text including its
purpose and organisation and the opinions and attitudes expressed in it. Each
correct answer in Part 5 receives 2 marks.
 Part 5 consists of one long text followed by six multiple-choice questions which
test detailed understanding of the text, including opinions and attitudes
expressed in it. The text has a title and may also have a subheading. Candidates
need to read the text closely in order to distinguish between, for example,
apparently similar viewpoints, outcomes or reasons.
 The questions are presented in the same order as the information in the text and
the final question may depend on interpretation of the text as a whole, e.g. the
writer’s purpose, attitude or opinion.
 Candidates should select one option for each question and mark it in some way,
e.g. by circling the letter A, B, C or D on the question paper. Once they are
satisfied that they have made the appropriate selections, they should transfer
their answers to the answer sheet.
 Skimming means reading a text quickly to get a general understanding of the
text.
 Scanning means reading a text quickly to find specific information.

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Cambridge English Proficiency Reading and Use of
English: Part 5
Answer keys

Procedure Step 1
a) The texts are from newspapers, magazines, novels, non-fiction
b) Multiple- choice questions, four options (A,B,C,D), one correct option to be chosen
c) Six
d) You write the correct option letter on the Answer Sheet. You can write on the question
paper but answers must be transferred to the Answer Sheet.
e) There are two marks for each question
f) The questions test detail, opinion, attitude, tone, purpose, main idea, implication, text
organisation features such as exemplification and reference
g) Yes, you can mark the question paper in any way you like (underlining, highlighting,
etc.)
Procedure Step 4
quality weekly magazine, freelance, editor, commission, profile, national daily newspaper,
article, regular columnist, column, piece, seasoned hack, by-line.
Procedure Step 6
• The text is before the questions for a reason. Many students skim read the text first to
get a general understanding of it, then read the questions. When they read the text a
second time more closely, scanning the text, they can find the answers more easily.
Some students prefer to read the questions first. Encourage students to try different
ways to find out what suits them.
• The questions are in the same order as the information that answers the questions in
the text. The last question could be a global question (a question on the whole text).
• Suggest students skim read text quickly to get a general understanding of the text,
and then mentally summarise the text. You could ask them to give an oral summary
in class.
• When dealing with the questions, some students read just the stem first because they
feel that when they try to locate the answer in the text, their judgement is not clouded
by the options.
• Some students read the stem and all four options because when they read the text,
they ‘recognise’ the option that is the key.
• Some stems are complete questions while others are incomplete sentences.
• Students should always read the stem very carefully and consider each option and
how it relates to the stem. Options should not be considered on their own without
taking into account the stem.

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Cambridge English Proficiency Reading and Use of
English: Part 5
Student’s Worksheet
Paragraph number in brackets after each answer.
c (1); k (1); f (1); g (1); j (1); I (2); h (2); d (3); I (4); b (5, 6); e (7); a (8)

Sample Task
31 C had always seemed derisively small but now it was like lost riches

32 C she scoured the press for hints of impending issues, you needed not so much
to be abreast of things as ahead of them

33 D she learned that one of the paper’s regular columnists had fallen foul of the
editor and departed

34 B You did some lovely essays at school. I wonder if you’ve still got any of them
somewhere

35 A She refused to allow the word luck. She must have got the job on her merits.

36 C had been about to pick up the phone. As soon as the colleague was out of the
room he reached for the phone

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Cambridge English Proficiency Reading and Use of
English: Part 5
Student’s worksheet

Read the text again and re-arrange these sentences in the order they occur in the text,
indicating which paragraph(s) (1-8) the information is in.
a. Lucy has no time for a private life
b. Lucy talks to her family
c. Lucy has lost her job and has less money
d. Lucy waits for news of a job
e. Lucy wonders why she was successful in getting a new job
f. Lucy writes three successful articles
g. Lucy comes to the attention of an editor
h. Lucy hears about a job vacancy
i. Lucy obtains her own column on a national newspaper
j. Lucy has some insights into the profession of journalism
k. Lucy does some freelance work
l. Lucy considers returning to a previous job

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Cambridge English Proficiency Reading and Use of
English: Part 5
Sample Task
You are going to read an extract from a novel. For questions 31-36, choose the answer (A,B,C or
D) which you think fits best according to the text. Mark your answers on the separate answer
sheet.

Lucy gets a new job on a newspaper

It was a precarious period for her where her own fortunes were concerned. She had to rely on
freelance work for six months after the quality weekly magazine folded. The regular salary cheque
had always seemed derisively small. But now it was like lost riches. Doggedly, she wrote letters
and telephoned and peppered editors with unsolicited articles and suggestions. Sometimes she
struck lucky and got a commission. She wrote a profile of a woman politician who appreciated her
fair-minded approach and tipped her off about a local government row in a complacent cathedral
town. Lucy went there, investigated, talked to people and wrote a piece exposing a rich cauldron
of corruption which was snapped up by a national daily newspaper. This in turn led to a
commission to investigate the controversial siting of a theme park in the north of England. Her
article was noticed by the features editor in search of something sharp and bracing on the heritage
industry in general. She was getting a name for abrasive comment, for spotting an issue and
homing in upon it. Anxiously she scoured the press for hints of impending issues. In this trade, she
saw, you needed not so much to be abreast of things as ahead of them, lying in wait for
circumstances, ready to pounce.
But an article sold every week or two did not pay the bills. She began to contemplate, bleakly, a
return to the treadmill of proofreading and copy-editing. And then one day she walked into the
offices of the national daily which had taken her cauldron of corruption piece and whose features
editor had since looked kindly upon her. Having handed over a speculative piece on the latest
educational theories she’d written, she fell into conversation with an acquaintance and learned that
one of the paper’s regular columnists had fallen foul of the editor and departed in a cloud of dust.
The column, traditionally addressed to matters of the moment and written so as to provoke
attention and controversy, was untethered, so to speak. Lucy made the necessary phone call before
her nerve went.
She was asked to submit a piece as a trial run which they published. ‘Great,’ they said. ‘We’ll let
you know,’ they said. ‘Soon,’ they assured her, ‘really soon.’ She chewed her nails for a fortnight
for a fortnight; a seasoned hack was given a trial run after her; she read his contribution which, she
saw with absolute clarity, was succinct, incisive and original. Or just possibly anodyne, banal and
plodding.
And then, the phone call came. She’d have a weekly column with her own by-line and her
photograph, postage-stamp size, next to it. There’d be a salary cheque, and perhaps fame and
success to follow that. Thinking more pragmatically, she realised that the job presented her with
not only a wonderful opportunity but also the inevitable pressure of keeping up with the twists and
turns of events to which she must supply a perceptive commentary,
‘A start,’ she said to her mother Maureen, and Bruce, her step-father. ‘It’s a start anyway, but they
could fire me at any moment.’

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Cambridge English Proficiency Reading and Use of
English: Part 5
‘Just let them try,’ said Maureen belligerently. ‘I think you’re better with your hair a bit shorter.
Or maybe that’s not a very flattering picture. I think you’re very clever. You did some lovely
essays at school. I wonder if you’ve still got any of them somewhere.’
Later, when she was alone, Lucy thought that her appointment had probably been a piece of good
fortune. She refused to allow the word luck. She was young yet, and this was something of a plum.
She must have got eh job on her merits, she told herself, along with whatever assistance there may
have been from the inadequacies of others considered for the appointment, or the failure of further
rivals to apply. Hat she was never to know was that in fact the editor had been on the verge of
offering the job to the seasoned hack – had been about to pick up the phone – when the colleague
he most disliked had walked into his office and spoken with satisfaction of the prospect of closer
association with this old crony of his. The editor listened with some indignation, first at the
assumption that this would be his decision, and then at the notion of these two ganging up under
his nose. As soon as the colleague was out of the room, he reached for the phone. And rang Lucy.
And so it began, that time during which she was so feverishly hitched to the affairs of public life
that in retrospect it was to seem as though she hurtled from day today with the onward rush of the
news, denied any of the lethargy of individual existence.

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Cambridge English Proficiency Reading and Use of
English: Part 5

31 After losing her job, how did Lucy feel about the salary she used to earn?
A She had been foolish to give it up.
B It had given her a sense of security.
C She should have appreciated it more.
D It represented a fair return for her work.

32 Lucy thinks the secret of success as a freelance journalist is to

A keep yourself informed about current affairs.
B adopt a controversial style of writing.
C identify future newsworthy situations.
D make as many contacts as possible.

33 What made Lucy decide to apply for a job on the national daily?
A She had a friend who worked there.
B She had impressed her features editor.
C She had gained a reputation for effective reporting.
D She had discovered some information about a vacancy.

34 It is suggested that Lucy’s mother Maureen

A is forgetful and absent-minded.
B understands little about Lucy’s job.
C has good critical judgement about writing.
D expects Lucy will have trouble with the editor.

35 On reflection, how did Lucy account for the fact that she got the job?
A She hoped it was because she deserved it.
B She was unable to understand how it happened.
C She thought her age had given her an advantage.
D She knew she was better than the many applicants.

36 The impression given of the editor is that he is

A anxious to please his colleagues.
B unable to make up his mind.
C prone to act on impulse.
D quick to take offence

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